Last week, the Supreme Court of the United States issued its long-awaited decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and the University of North Carlina.
A 6-3 majority held that granting racial preferences in admissions to both private and public colleges and universities violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, respectively. Despite what you might read in some news reports or commentaries, the court did not hold that equal protection principles do not apply to the military service academies’ admissions practices. Nor did the court carve out an exception to the principle that race-based college admissions policies violate the Constitution.
Though not a party to the lawsuit, the solicitor general of the United States filed an amicus brief on behalf of the United States in support of Harvard and UNC. The solicitor general argued that a racially diverse officer corps, whether commissioned through Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) at civilian colleges or the service academies, was a compelling national security interest.
Thirty-three retired flag officers and two other veterans joined the United States in urging the court to further the goal of a racially diverse officer corps by upholding the use of racial preferences in admissions to colleges and universities. Reiterating arguments they filed in three previous affirmative action cases, Grutter, Fisher I, and Fisher II, their brief argued that eliminating racial preferences would reduce the number of minorities enrolled in ROTC and at the service academies, the
